40. 5 Ways To Make Positive Affirmations WORK

Positive affirmations are phrases which people purposely say (and perhaps also read and write) in order to change their state of mind.

This is based on the very real premise that the state of your mind has a massive influence on the state of your life. So if you’re not succeeding in something or you’re feeling low, positive affirmations should get you back on track.

But sometimes, they just don’t work

The reason they aren’t working could be a mixture of things. Some approaches work better for some people than others, so ask yourself these five questions and see you’re doing affirmations in the most effective way.

1) Do you feel it and believe it?

You need to feel your affirmation. An affirmation with no emotion is inert. It’s like a heavy brick that sinks to the bottom of the riverbed and just sits there. Doing nothing.

A positive affirmation needs to move the energy within you, it needs to make you feel better. When that happens, you start the chain reaction of more positive energy, thoughts, actions and synchronicities which then changes your overall life experience.

To evoke emotions, repetition is important. People repeat the affirmation often and regularly over time until they start believing it and therefore feeling it. If this doesn’t work for you, the affirmation may be too far reaching right now and you might use baby steps – see point 2.

2) Are you reaching too far ahead?

I’ve not done any research but I’d eat my hat if this wasn’t one of the top reasons that people don’t get anything out of affirmations.

Let’s say you have just been dumped and are feeling the pain of rejection. Your current state of mind may be something like ‘I’m not good enough or lovable’, and so you pick this affirmation: ‘I am good enough and lovable’.

For most people, this is akin to trying to get from the UK to Australia in one step. It ‘aint gonna happen. You’ve got to make the journey. It’s an emotional journey that starts with something more believable and good feeling like ‘I still have a lot of people around who love me’ or ‘I’ve had wonderful relationships and am capable of having more’.

Over time, you’ll be able to reach for the bigger, bolder affirmations like ‘I am good enough and lovable’.

3) Do your actions match your words?

Affirmations are often about words, but I’d like to throw into the mix that your actions are very important too. If you affirm ‘I am beautiful’ and then spend 10 minutes scrutinising your body in the mirror each day, your actions don’t match your words. You’re throwing water on your own fire.

Future tense invites your mind to notice where it currently is – i.e. not where you want to be.

If you say ‘I WILL create a thriving business’, the mind’s natural inclination may be to notice ‘but I’m not there yet’. So you actually generate energy around ‘it’s not here yet’ which has the opposite of the intended effect.

Keep your affirmations in the present tense. You could still fall in the trap of noticing you’re not there yet, but ‘I AM creating a thriving business’ is much stronger and therefore harder for your mind to argue against.

5) Are you consistent?

The point of a positive affirmation is that you are re-wiring your brain. The old pathways of neurons that carried thoughts like ‘I am poor’ need to be cut off and new pathways built which say ‘I am rich’.

This takes time and continued effort. The only way something can be ingrained into your state of mind is because you continue to think it. So don’t expect to do an affirmation 3 times and see your life transform. You must keep at it consistently.

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I encourage you to seek your own answers, go with what resonates inside you. But I hope these help you get the most out of affirmations and therefore create the magical life you deserve!

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Anyone who believes they are suffering a medical condition affecting their psychological and emotional wellbeing, should seek professional care. The content on this site is designed to provoke thought and inspire us all to a better way of living, it is not a substitute for professional care.

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